Light Sport Aircraft

SkyCraft Airplanes, a company working to bring an affordable, single-seat light sport aircraft to market, said at EAA AirVenture that it is compliant with ASTM standards and expects certification in September.

GreenWing International, an arm of Chinese electric airplane design firm Yuneec International, is now offering its eSpyder 280 for sale as an experimental-category, amateur-built kit in the United States.

On a recent visit to Spokane, Washington’s Felts Field, AOPA Pilot got a first look at Northwest Turbine’s latest conversion undergoing certification. The Cougar Baron is a Beechcraft 58P outfitted with a pair of 500-shaft-horsepower Pratt & Whitney PT6A-21 turboprops. Rocket Engineering is doing the certification legwork for partner company Northwest Turbine LLC, which also markets the Royal Turbine conversion of the Beechcraft Duke.

There may come a day when your trusty airplane, the one that took you on so many memory-making journeys, just isn’t such a big part of your life anymore. Once upon a time, you both spent hours together—visiting new places, making new friends, visiting old ones, and seeing the world from new heights. But now, for one reason or another, you simply aren’t putting her to good use, and so there she sits gathering dust in the hangar. Not only is this a nonproductive asset, it’s deteriorating! Aircraft, like people, like to be engaged. So, what to do?

Unmanned aircraft and airboats would seem to have little to offer general aviation, but growth in the two industries is spurring advancements in propeller design and other technologies—with positive implications for aircraft owners and pilots.

Buying piston aircraft by the slice remains a boutique option available in a limited number of locations, although that may change with new players jumping into the market. Some are downright evangelical about leveraging the buying power of many pilots to refresh an aging general aviation fleet with brand-new aircraft, or expanding—dramatically—access to aircraft at the lowest possible cost.

You're vacationing in a sunny place--let's say the Florida Keys--and you can't help but dream about how nice it would be to fly along the coast. But you have no airplane on this trip, and your schedule doesn't really allow for the half-day it likely would take to get checked out at the local FBO.

During most AOPA Town Hall gatherings, I remind participating members that AOPA's founders created our organization in 1939 largely because they feared that a government about to enter a world war just might regulate general aviation out of existence. Nearly 75 years later, our mission is grounded in similar concerns--raised not by the prospect of war but by the growing power of regulatory agencies, many of which operate with increasing autonomy and minimal oversight.

Icon Aircraft announced that $60 million has been raised to support regulatory compliance and production of the new A5. The FAA has yet to rule on Icon’s request for an exemption to light sport aircraft weight limits the company sought citing safety benefits.